From NPR.com: Archivist Daniel Lorello was arrested
this past week, charged with stealing hundreds of historic documents
from the New York State Library over the last six years. Lorello sold
the historic documents — some to collectors and some on eBay.

And it was eBay that led to Lorello's demise.

An
amateur historian and lawyer named Joseph Romito helped crack the case
after he found an 1823 letter written by John C. Calhoun for sale on
eBay.

The New York State Library confirmed that the Calhoun
letter was indeed missing from the vault. Romito and the Attorney
General's office began bidding on the document on eBay, lest some other
person buy it. The attorney general's office won the bid and found the
thief, along with more than a dozen boxes of purloined documents.

"This
crime is particularly repugnant because it's dealing with historic
documents, which is literally stealing the history of New York, page by
page," said New York's Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.